Smoking is the process of flavoring or cooking food by exposing it to smoke generated from burning natural wood products. Smoke can enhance the flavor of certain food products, including, for example, meats, fish, vegetables, and cheeses. When smoking food products, however, it is difficult to objectively determine how much smoke flavor has been added. If too little smoke is added, the food does not obtain the smoky quality desired. On the other, if too much smoke is added, the food can be unpleasant to consume. This delicate balance of smoke flavor is made all the more difficult since individuals who are exposed to smoky conditions quickly become desensitized to the taste and smells that smoke imparts to food. Thus, a person involved in the smoking of the food product is often unable to provide a helpful assessment of the amount of smoke flavor that has been added to the food product.
Artificial or natural smoke flavors also have been developed. Although adding flavors has an advantage in that the amount of the ingredient added to the food product can be relatively easily controlled, they often do not produce a flavor or aroma that is as desirable as that produced by actually exposing a food product to a volume of natural smoke. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an objective method to determine whether an appropriate amount of natural smoke flavor has been added to a food product.